I'm a bit confused as to how Apostate works. When you flip from his starting side to the Dark Corruptor side, its clear enough. You destroy a relic and set him to 20 HP. However, when you kill him on the Dark Corruptor side, he has the same text about destroying a relic and flipping back, whch makes sense, but there is no information about what his hitpoints will be. Does this mean he starts the back on his initial side with whatever HP he had left before we flipped him?
Example, Apostate takes 66 damage and flips to Dark Corruptor side, destroying the relic with the least HP. He goes to 20 HP. He takes another 18 damage, and then is hit for 3 damgae by a hero. His text reads that whenever he would take damage that would reduce him to zero or lower, he instead destroys the relic with highest HP and flips back to his initial side. At this point, he destroys a relic and flips. Does he have 2 HP left on the other side, and thus is prone to flip again very quickly?
From memory, you destory the relic instead of doing the damage that would take him below 0. So, if he has 5 hp and takes six, a relic gets destoyed instead and he's back to Infernal Emisary with 5 HP and one less relic.
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So, based on the wording alone without any spirit of the law interpretting, if Apostate is at 1 or 2 HP, I can hit him with a Sucker Punch or a Wrathful Gaze, and we'll be done, no matter how many Relics he has left? His flip mechanic says nothing about when he's destroyed, just when he's reduced to 0 or fewer HP.
Based on wording alone, yes. You can do the same to Baron Blade, too. But you should feel bad about it.
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Actually, no, you can't do it to Baron Blade anymore. Enhanced Baron Blade says to flip him when he would be destroyed.
I only know that because it came up in a game I was playing with a new player on Tuesday.
Still waiting for my stuff to cross the Atlantic, hence all this is from memory and playtesting.
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tough one. On the one hand, under the "destroy" keyword, it says that things that are destroyed are placed in the trash. Villian character cards dont go in the trash, so there's an argument to be made that they can't be destroyed.
Other text (like BB's character card) indicates that they can be. I think I give the edge to the interpreation that you CAN sucker punch or Wrathfun Gaze Apostate to get rid of him. You could also do this to Citizen Dawn on her immune to damage side, or Ambuscade while Cloaked.
As to the original question, the way it was explained to me at GenCon was thusly:
Apostate is on his Infernal Emmisary side. He taks 66 damage and flips to his Dark Corruptor side, destroying a relic in the process. When he flips to the DC side, he regains 20 hp. Suppose he takes 20 more damage, He is then flipped back to the IE side, destroying a relic. Now is when things get interesting. He does NOT, in fact, regain HP. He is currently at 0 hp (or less) and therefore destroys another relic and immidiately flips BACK to his DC side, trashing another relic and again getting restored to 20 hp. This essentially means that killing Apostate on his DC side destroys 2 relics and restores Apostate to 20 hp.
"He robbed from the rich and he-
gave to the poor.
Stood up to the Man and he-
gave him what for.
Our love for him now,
aint hard to explain,
the hero of Canton,
the man they call "Jayne""
Er, who explained it to you that way at Gen Con? That is not the way it works.
Apostate's text character card says that if he WOULD be reduced to 0 or fewer HP to destroy a relic and flip him. On the back, it says that if he WOULD be reduced to 0 or fewer HP to destroy a relic and flip him. Sure, when flipping from the front to the back, he regains 20 HP as well, but in both cases he has destroyed a relic INSTEAD of taking the damage.
Reducing him to 0 or fewer HP does not auto-destroy two relics and flip him twice. It prevents that damage and flips him at a fairly low HP value.
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
Actually, the Corruptor side has one more "instead" in it than his Emissary side. So his Emissary flips to Corruptor, and his HP becomes 20. When the corruptor dies, it negates the damage -- destroying a relic INSTEAD -- and flips, leaving him at 5 or whatever, so you can kill him and flip him again.
McBehrer is the sole winner of this game... And McBehrer, I would step carefully should you find your way down dark alleys. More than one vote said simply, "McBehrer must die."
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-- Trajector
This is what we thought happened. I appreciate you guys writing the cards to be interpreted literally. We sometimes question if that's what it really means (primarily because we're all rules-lawyery and like to argue), but it seems like in most cases the literal interpretation is correct.
As an example and a follow up question, Unity's power says she can break an equipment and put a mechanical golem into play. Since it doesn't specify her equipment, can she break other equipment on the board, such as those played by allies or villains (I'm not sure any villains have equipment cards off hand)? It would seem like she could.
Any equipment card in play. Generally, it's at least polite to ask your teammate before blowing up their stuff, though. *grin*
"Your goodness must have some edge to it — else it is none."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
mmk. I don't recall who it was that made that specific argument, but the way you describe seems to make sense. Realistically, about 90% of the time I fight Apostate we win or lose on the Infernal Emmisary side, so it has rarely come up for me.
"He robbed from the rich and he-
gave to the poor.
Stood up to the Man and he-
gave him what for.
Our love for him now,
aint hard to explain,
the hero of Canton,
the man they call "Jayne""